Kerri is a teaching assistant for a large lecture class. She enjoys grading student tests, alphabetizing them, and entering the scores in the grade book, but the professor thinks she takes too long to complete this process. Hoping to speed things up, the professor offers Kerri a small cash reward for grading each assignment quickly and accurately. This solution works until the professor runs out of money. Now Kerri complains about her grading responsibilities all the time, and she takes even longer than before to complete her work. She asks if the professor can force the 150 students to sit in alphabetical order during the test to save her time alphabetizing them later, and when the professor declines, she tells him how much she hates grading. Which of the following best explains what happened to Kerri?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Kerri initially enjoyed grading the tests and was intrinsically motivated to do so. However, the introduction of extrinsic motivation in the form of a small cash reward caused her to focus more on the reward than on the intrinsic enjoyment of the task. When the reward was no longer available, Kerri lost her extrinsic motivation and found the task less enjoyable than before. This decreased intrinsic motivation may have been further exacerbated by the perceived failure of the reward system. As a result, Kerri began to complain about the task and took even longer to complete it. This situation illustrates how extrinsic motivation can sometimes undermine intrinsic motivation, particularly if the extrinsic reward is small or not consistently available.

Kerri Is a Teaching Assistant for a Large Lecture Class